I Have Five Kick-Ass Brothers – Episode 02
Raina left the Smith mansion carrying one suitcase and twenty years of memories she could not fit inside it. The front doors closed behind her with a final, muffled thud, and cold evening air swept across the drive. She had imagined leaving home many times—for college, marriage, perhaps an adventure—but never like this, erased from the family before she reached the gate.
Mrs. Smith had offered to send a butler with her, more out of habit than affection. Raina refused. She could not bear to arrive at her biological parents’ door in a Smith family car, escorted like an unwanted parcel being returned to its sender. If she had to begin again, she would do it on her own feet.
Coco’s voice followed her in memory. “Take your things and get out of our house.” More painful than the command was the fact that no one had contradicted it. Two decades of birthdays, scraped knees, and Sunday dinners had vanished beneath a percentage printed on a laboratory report.
At the end of the drive, Raina looked back once. Warm light glowed behind the mansion windows, and silhouettes moved through rooms that had been hers that morning. “So that’s it,” she whispered, tightening her grip on the suitcase handle. “Twenty years meant nothing.”
She refused to blame Coco for the switch itself. They had both been helpless infants, and both had lost something no money could restore. Yet Coco’s delight in Raina’s humiliation had cut deep. The accusation that she had stolen Coco’s life stayed lodged beneath her ribs, turning grief into a guilt she knew she did not deserve.
Across Brookfield City, the consequences of the DNA test were spreading beyond either family. In a private hospital suite, the elderly Mr. Jones listened as his assistant delivered news he had pursued for years. Age had weakened his body, but the mention of the girl who had once saved a Jones heir brought fierce light back into his eyes.
“We traced her to the Smith family,” the assistant explained. “The daughter raised in their household matches the age and circumstances from the accident.” The distinction between raised and born seemed minor on paper. To Mr. Jones, however, it would soon prove to be the difference between truth and a dangerous mistake.
The old man leaned back against his pillows, relief softening his lined face. A brave child had risked herself when everyone else panicked, and the Jones family had never forgotten the debt. “Then contact the Smiths,” he ordered. “It is time we repaid the young woman who saved a life.”
Raina knew nothing of that search as a cab carried her away from the glittering neighborhoods of central Brookfield. Towers gave way to modest shops and narrow streets. Each mile seemed to strip another layer from the identity she had worn all her life, until she was no longer Raina Smith but a stranger traveling toward the name Lincoln.
She reread the address on her phone and tried to imagine the people waiting there. Had they known she existed before the test? Had they wondered about her on birthdays? Most frightening of all, would they see her as their daughter—or as the girl who had unknowingly taken Coco’s place among the Smiths?
The cab stopped before a small, weathered house in a quiet neighborhood. Its porch light flickered, and the curtains looked faded beside the immaculate fabrics Raina was accustomed to. She paid the driver with hands that would not stop trembling, then stood alone on the sidewalk as the car disappeared.
This was where the Lincolns lived, according to the address they had deliberately provided. Raina could not know that the humble house was part of a careful disguise or that her biological family possessed wealth beyond the Smiths’ imagination. She saw only chipped paint, a narrow porch, and the possibility of being rejected twice in one day.
Inside, Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln heard the knock and exchanged a startled look. They had prepared for this moment, yet preparation did nothing to quiet the fear in Mrs. Lincoln’s chest. Coco had abandoned them as soon as a wealthier biological family appeared. What if Raina had come merely to compare fortunes before leaving too?
Mrs. Lincoln opened the door. For one unguarded second, recognition and longing flooded her face; the daughter before her carried echoes of relatives in the tilt of her chin and the shape of her eyes. Then caution returned, and she gripped the door as if it were the only solid thing in the room.
“Hi,” Raina began, suddenly unable to remember any of the sentences she had rehearsed. “I’m Raina Smith.” The old surname sounded wrong now, a key to a house whose locks had already been changed. She swallowed and tried again. “I mean… Raina Lincoln.”
Mr. Lincoln appeared behind his wife. Neither parent rushed forward, and the hesitation broke the small hope Raina had carried all the way across the city. Their expressions were not cold, exactly. They looked frightened—as though her arrival threatened to expose something they had agreed to keep hidden.
“Are you the young woman from the Smith family?” Mrs. Lincoln asked, though the DNA report and Raina’s familiar features had already answered. The formality of the question widened the distance between them. Raina nodded and fought the urge to apologize for appearing at all.
“I don’t want money,” she said quickly, mistaking their fear for suspicion of a different kind. “I brought only what belongs to me. If this is too sudden, I can find somewhere else tonight. I just thought… after the test, maybe you’d want to meet me.”
Pain crossed Mrs. Lincoln’s face, and she almost pulled Raina into her arms. Behind her, however, Mr. Lincoln glanced toward the hallway where their sons waited out of sight. The family had agreed to test Raina’s heart before revealing their own, and breaking that promise now might repeat the mistake they had made with Coco.
Raina stood beneath the flickering porch light while her biological parents silently weighed love against fear. She had come prepared for poverty, awkwardness, even anger, but not for the secret passing between their eyes. When Mrs. Lincoln finally stepped aside, her welcome was gentle yet guarded—and Raina crossed the threshold knowing the Lincolns were hiding something that could change everything.